WHAT IS THE SOUL? Our Cosmic and Planetary Roots - Anne Baring

[Guest guest]

> The Living Goddess: Reclaiming the Tradition of the Mother of the

> Universe

>

> The worst tragedy of Europe's Dark Age of Christianity was not only

> that thinking was no longer allowed (questioning the church was a

> capital offense), but that direct personal exploration of mystical

> states was strictly forbidden. To this day most Christian churches

> actively discourage involvement in Eastern-style meditation

> techniques, techniques which help one develop and deepen one's

> connection with Spirit. Of course not even the church could keep

> the human soul in chains-some lone saints made extraordinary

> spiritual breakthroughs. Those who couched their experiences in

> Christian terms were canonized (after they were safely dead); those

> who didn't, were executed. Perhaps the inevitable result of

> severing so many people from their inner spiritual roots was that

> when Western science began to flourish again in the 17th century,

> it quickly became completely soulless.

>

> 'We Westerners have inherited a drastically impoverished world-view

> in which the Goddess, and all the cherished feminine values and rich

> inner experience her worship entails, have been lost,' stressed

> Linda Johnsen. 'According to the ancient Egyptians, when her

> husband Osiris was lost, Isis set out to find the scattered parts

> of his body and restore him. Today it is up to us to locate and

> restore the tradition of the living Goddess. We would do well to

> begin our search in India, where for not one moment in all of human

> history have the children of the living Goddess forgotten their

> Divine Mother.'

>

> In opening up a universe of vibrant Goddess spirituality, this book

> offers a vision of what our own Goddess heritage must have been,

> revealing how much the West lost when we turned away from the

> Divine Mother. Re-lighting our candle from the flames of India's

> vibrant Goddess tradition, says Linda Johnsen, we can re-ignite the

> spirituality of the West.

>

> http://www.meaus.com/living_goddess.htm

>

 

WHAT IS THE SOUL?

Our Cosmic and Planetary Roots

Anne Baring

 

" In ancient cultures people imagined the whole cosmos as a living

being and felt that the visible world was the manifestation of an

invisible causal one whose eternal life continually flowed into it.

Everything - plants, animals and humans; planets, moon, sun and

stars - was sacred because all were part of a universal soul, a great

web of life.

 

However, for almost three thousand years in Judeo-Christian as well

as Islamic culture, the image of the goddess, who carried this

principle of universal Soul, has been missing. Almost everything

which the image of a Divine Mother stood for in Bronze Age cultures -

most importantly the feeling of the immanence of spirit within

nature - was lost. The effects of this loss on civilisation are

incalculable because what was once imagined as a Great Mother - all

nature and her mystery - came to be seen as separate from spirit and

desacralised. There is a deep sickness within our religious

traditions which have excluded the feminine principle from the god-

head, and have looked upon nature and matter as something inferior to

spirit and emptied of divinity. Because of the repudiation of the

goddess and the belief that spirit was something completely separate

from nature, we gradually lost the feeling of containment in nature

and the feeling that life on earth was sacred because it was animated

and sustained by spirit, that it was a manifestation of or epiphany

of spirit.

 

The Hedge of Thorns shows what an impenetrable barrier has grown up

between our head and our heart and how difficult it is to accomplish

this task. I see the Hedge of Thorns as the body of religious and

scientific beliefs which currently offer a fixed and incomplete view

of reality. On the one hand there is the Christian religion which, in

its emphasis on belief and service, has neglected the need for an

inner and direct relationship with spirit and has never regarded the

world as intrinsically divine. God has been presented as a creator

beyond nature and ourselves. Man is fallen and sinful through the

very act of procreation; he is not intrinsically divine, but is

redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God - provided he

belongs to the Christian Church and adheres to its beliefs.

 

One of the main features of the last two centuries has been

the " death " of God, or the loss of the transcendent value and

containing belief-system that has structured Western civilisation for

nearly 3000 years. The moral values associated with that belief

system have been jettisoned - creating moral anarchy. The vacuum

created by the absence of a transcendent value has been filled by

secular belief systems which have inflicted enormous suffering and

sacrifice of life, creating a dark night of the soul for millions.

Yet the deconstruction of the old system invites the formulation of a

new vision of reality that would include the essence of what

previously had been neglected by the old religious traditions.

 

There is a second aspect to the Hedge of Thorns: the belief system of

scientific reductionism which now dominates western secular culture.

I see this belief system as the end-result of the long-standing

dissociation between spirit and nature, mind and matter. Ours is the

first culture which recognises no principle transcendent to the human

mind, which does not believe that a non-visible dimension orders and

influences the visible world. Instead it believes that the universe

is indifferent to us and that we are the products of impersonal

forces operating on inanimate matter. Atoms are lifeless particles,

floating randomly in a random universe. We are simply the products of

genetic, social and environmental conditioning. In scientific

reductionism (not science per se), the idea of dominance and control

gradually overlaid and suppressed the instinct for connection and

participation. (Descartes gave us the concept of the self as subject

and the world as object and said that he wanted to make man master

and possessor of the Earth). According to this reductionist belief,

the Earth and its resources are there for us to manipulate and

exploit as we choose. When we die, that is the end of us. We are only

body and brain. There is no such thing as the survival of

consciousness after death. There is in this belief system a strong

fascist element, since any belief system outside of it is ridiculed

and dismissed as irrelevant and out-dated. There is more than a

suggestion of a totalitarian ideology once more raising its head

which is having more and more influence on our current secular

culture. This reductionist science or scientism has little to do with

real science although it claims to present the 'truth'.

 

The story of the Sleeping Beauty says that at the right moment, for

the right person, the hedge of thorns turns to roses and a way opens

through it. I think we are, at the millennium, at this moment of

breakthrough. A deep human instinct is attempting to restore balance

and wholeness in us by trying to articulate values grounded in a

different vision of reality. A gradual restoration of a sense of the

sacred has been taking place beneath the surface of our culture. In a

deeper sense, we are awakening to awareness of our relationship with

the greater planetary organism on which our life and the life of all

species depends. A new consciousness is being born - an awareness of

interconnectedness, an awareness of our involvement in a great hidden

web of life.

 

The last hundred years or so have seen a gradual process of death and

regeneration taking place as a few individuals - a minute fraction of

the world's population - have responded to the instinct that we must

relinquish the old pattern of domination and control of nature if our

species is to survive. The small seeds of change sown by these

individuals are slowly bringing about a change in the culture as a

whole, even though it is still difficult to see clearly what is

happening. Some of us are gripped by a sense of hopelessness and

despair, feeling powerless to alter the course of events. Others fall

into a blind fanaticism and a desire for absolute power. Still others

are so immersed in the daily requirements of their lives and in

blindly following the superficial goals of the culture, that they

have no time to think about anything at a deep level.

 

Fifty years have seen the foundations laid for a transformation

of our relationship with the planet and the emergence of many groups

of individuals who are focused on protecting it from the effects of

human ignorance and greed. These form a new collective entity, no

longer tribal in character, which is held together by shared values

and a shared commitment to implementing them. This global community

of concerned individuals is what I would call " the Prince " . In their

world-wide collaboration on behalf of life, the foundations have been

laid for the development of a contemporary image of both women and

men acting as sacred custodians of the earth - sacred because they

are participants in a universe that is increasingly rediscovered as

sacred. Wherever violence is used to promote these new values, one

can be sure that people are still thinking in the old polarised and

oppositional way rather than in the new way of reconciliation,

dialogue and integration.

 

As this deep soul-impulse for change and transformation gathers

momentum, the integration of the emerging feminine value with the

ruling masculine one has begun to change our perception of reality. I

would like to suggest twelve areas where this transformation of

consciousness is taking place, called forth by the many individuals

responding to the need to articulate different values and a deeper

perception of reality - to awaken to the soul.

 

The Awakening of the Sleeping Beauty

 

1. The Recovery of the Lost Feminine Image of the Divine and a new

definition of spirit, not as something remote from and beyond

ourselves but simply all that is, both invisible and visible. Creator

and creation, Processor and process cannot be separated. We are

beginning to realise that in exploring matter and ourselves we may be

exploring a manifest aspect of God or Spirit.

 

In 1950, in response to a document signed by eight million Catholics,

a Papal Bull declared the Virgin Mary to be assumed, body and soul

into heaven. Four years later she was named Queen of Heaven.

Interpreting the symbolic implications of this event, Jung

anticipated that the feminine archetype or principle, personified by

the Virgin Mary, was being raised to the level of spirit and that

this hieros gamos or sacred marriage of the masculine and feminine

aspects of life heralded a profound transformation of human

consciousness which would soon be given visible expression in the

collective life of humanity. In further confirmation of this rising

impulse in the collective psyche, a petition was presented to the

Pope in August 1997, asking for the Virgin Mary to be made co-

redemptrix with Christ.

 

The " goddess movement " was mediated by women deeply concerned by the

absence of the feminine dimension of the Divine in the Judeo-

Christian god-head and the need to recover a sacred image of the

Earth and of themselves. They have made an immense contribution to

the recovery of the soul.

 

2. The Resacralisation of Nature: The awakening sense of

responsibility towards the natural world. The recovery of the ancient

instinctive awareness of the interdependence and interconnection of

all things. The Newtonian legacy of viewing matter as something

separate from ourselves is being replaced by the idea that we are

inextricably involved in what we are observing. The sense of

responsibility towards other species is emerging and strengthening,

helped by the spectacular programmes put out by the great biologist,

David Attenborough on the BBC.

 

Many influential books set the agenda for a transformation of our

attitude to the Earth and to nature, grounding this in the

realisation that life was an indissoluble tissue of relationships and

that the observer is an inseparable part of what is observed. The

biologist Rachel Carson was the first to sound the alarm in 1963 with

her book Silent Spring.. She drew attention to the inter-dependence

of the human, animal and plant orders of life and the danger of

contaminating air, soil and ocean with the dangerous chemicals that

were at that time being used widely and indiscriminately to control

insects. She challenged the scientific myth of the control of nature,

born, she said, of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy when

it was supposed that nature existed for the convenience of man. " It

is our alarming misfortune, " she wrote, " that so primitive a science

has armed itself with the most terrible weapons, and that in turning

them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. "

The furious anger she aroused showed both the depths of human

ignorance about the interrelated systems of life on the planet and

also the power of entrenched attitudes which resisted any impulse for

change. Rachel Carson warned us of the dangers of interfering with

the balance of nature. In the preface to the 1961 edition of The Sea

Around Us first published in 1950, she warned of the effects of

disposing of nuclear residues in the sea:

 

In unlocking the secrets of the atom, modern man has found himself

confronted with a frightening problem - what to do with the most

dangerous materials that have ever existed in all the earth's

history, the by-products of atomic fission. The stark problem that

faces him is whether he can dispose of these lethal substances

without rendering the earth uninhabitable.

 

3. Woman's Growing Sense of her Value and her increasing

participation in the culture - to its enormous enrichment. However,

women enter and try to adapt to a world created entirely by men and

there is a danger that they may try to copy the male model offered to

them and lose touch with their own unique values. At the other end of

the spectrum, particularly in those areas dominated by fundamentalist

Islam, millions of women still lead lives blighted by abyssmal

poverty and are denied access to education and a free exercise of

their great gifts.

 

4. The Changing Relationship between Men and Women. The ancient

archetypal relationship between men and women is changing with a new

emphasis on partnership instead of control and subservience. Men are

no longer so contemptuous of women. Women are no longer so dependent

on men for financial support. Yet this applies to only a tiny

proportion of the total female population of the planet. Millions, if

not billions of women live lives of servitude, misery and oppression,

subject to persecutory tribal and religious customs and beliefs.

 

5. The Recovery of the Soul: reflected in the growth of interest in

psychotherapy and the many ways to heal human suffering. A deeper

understanding of the psyche and the development of insight into where

we are still controlled and driven by unconscious complexes. The

uncovering of the appalling suffering of children and the realisation

that much of the violence we deplore in society is due to our neglect

of their emotional and spiritual needs. There are five fundamental

questions the soul asks:

 

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Will I see my loved ones after death?

How can I heal my suffering?

How can I discover the true potential of my being? These questions

are being addressed by many individuals.

 

6. The Interest in the Body and Healing the Mind/body Split: Ancient

traditions of healing have been brought to Europe and America from

China, Tibet, India. Indian (ayurvedic) and Chinese (acupuncture,

herbal medicine) medicine have formed the basis of what is called

Alternative or Complementary Medicine. The focus of this medicine is

the treatment of body and soul as a single organism and the

prevention of disease.

 

7. The Integration of Different Races, Religious Traditions and

Ethnic Groups. This is an immense change on a planetary scale and is

far from complete. As global warming accelerates, there will be huge

movements of population and an ever-greater mingling of races.

 

8. The Influence of Eastern traditions on the West: Hinduism,

Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism; Sufism. With these has come access to

the idea of a direct path of communion with a transcendent order of

reality. Many Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu and Sufi texts have been

translated by individuals from the West as well as the East. Many

teachers from the East, including many from Tibet, have established

centres in the West. Influence of Yoga, Chi Gong, various approaches

to meditation.

 

9. The Recovery of the Shamanic traditions of the First Peoples -

North and South America, Australia, Africa.

 

10. The Awakening of Compassion for the poor, the deprived, the

exploited of the world. Growing pressure on governments to act

ethically and with the welfare of the planet in mind. Participation

(through witnessing on television) in the suffering of people remote

from ourselves. Awareness of the outrageous suffering of the victims

of war, often referred to as " collateral damage " . An immense work

still to be done.

 

11. Extending the Boundaries of the " Rational " to include the " Non-

Rational " . The interest in the Near-death experience. The question of

the survival of consciousness after death. The fascination with UFOS

and crop circles. Einstein said: " The paranormal is the normal of

tomorrow. " This interest reflects something that is essential to our

spirit of exploration and cannot be censored or repressed however

much there are attempts to do so.

 

12. The Emergence of a New Paradigm of Reality formulated by a group

of concerned scientists and philosophers - among them: David Bohm,

Frithjof Capra, Rupert Sheldrake, Danah Zohar, Brian Goodwin, Amit

Goswami, Candace Pert, Thomas Berry, Huston Smith, Richard Tarnas,

Brian Swimme, Ken Wilber, Deepak Chopra, Ervin Laszlo, Elizabet

Sahtouris.

 

All these influences and many more which there is no time to address

in this seminar are contributing to healing the dissociation in the

human psyche and the culture between mind and soul, spirit and

nature. They cannot really be separated from each other because each

is intrinsic to a psychic impulse that I would call the recovery of

the feminine principle. I mean recovery in two senses: first, the

sense of something that was ailing, diminished, or crippled being

restored to health, and secondly, the sense of something of great

value that was lost and is now being recovered. It is to be expected

that, this impulse for recovery will be fiercely resisted because old

habits of thought and behaviour are so deeply established. It is for

the most part carried by individuals working in relative obscurity.

It is not yet recognised and welcomed by the culture and particularly

by the media as a conscious goal. There are still countless millions

of people who are not aware of these issues, who may feel nothing for

the Earth, for the pollution of the oceans, for vanishing forests and

species, for the well-being of animals. They have not recovered the

lost instinct for participation in the life of nature. They may

ridicule or resist those who speak up in defence of another vision of

life.

 

Yet we are becoming more concerned to protect the delicate ecological

balance of the earth, more aware that we are poisoning the earth, the

seas and our own bodies with chemicals and pesticides, that we are

inviting our own destruction through our continued aggression towards

each other and our degradation of the environment. Climate change is

becoming a confirmed reality.

 

The Awakening of the Soul reflected in all these different events is

creating new values:

 

- A growing sense of responsibility towards the planet.

- A new concept of spirit as the life process itself.

- A recognition of the inter-connectedness of life.

- An effort to heal the mind/body split and the realisation that the

emotions are the factor which connects each to the other.

- A deeper understanding of the psyche and the growth of insight into

where we are still controlled by unconscious complexes and what Jung

called " the shadow " ..

- The emergence of a different quality of relationship between men

and women.

- A new awareness of the suffering and needs of children

- An awareness that we need to treat animals and all species on Earth

with greater respect.

 

The activation of the Feminine Principle is discernible in all these

different avenues of collective effort but I would like here to

connect the image of the Feminine with the image of the Holy Spirit

of Wisdom.

 

Awakening to the presence and guidance of this Holy Spirit means

becoming protective towards the whole of creation, dying to the old

divisive ways of looking at life and each other, and being born into

a radically different way of living through the creation of a

relationship with an immanent Divine Presence. Some people call the

intelligence or consciousness of the universe Sacred Mind, or Cosmic

Intelligence. Some prefer to call it God or Goddess. During these

seminars I prefer to call it Cosmic Soul or Holy Spirit because to me

these words reflect both the universality of the Presence and the

feminine quality of it.

 

Under the guidance of this Holy Spirit what we have seen in the last

half-century is the growing contribution of many concerned

individuals to answering the question: " What can be done to change

ourselves and our culture in time to avert a catastrophe of our own

making? " I will end this seminar with these words of Einstein:

 

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part

limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and

feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical

delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for

us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few

persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this

prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living

creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. "

 

WHAT IS THE SOUL?

Our Cosmic and Planetary Roots

Anne Baring